Not to spare Your father even, Eugenia! For shame! 'Tis time to tie your roving tongue indeed. Consider, too, we are not in the country, Where tongue and eyes, Eugenia, may run wild Without offence to uncensorious woods; But in a city, with its myriad eyes Inquisitively turn'd to watch, and tongues As free and more malicious than yours To tell--where honour's monument is wax, And shame's of brass. I know, Eugenia, High spirits are not in themselves a crime; But if to men they seem so?--that's the question. For it is almost better to do ill With a good outward grace than well without; Especially a woman; most of all One not yet married; whose reputation One breath of scandal, like a flake of snow, May melt away; one of those tenderest flowers Whose leaves ev'n the warm breath of flattery Withers as fast as envy's bitterest wind, That surely follows short-lived summer praise. Ev'n those who praise your beauty, grace, or wit, Will be the first, if you presume on them, To pull the idol down themselves set up, Beginning with malicious whispers first, Until they join the storm themselves have raised. And most if one be given oneself to laugh And to make laugh: the world will doubly yearn To turn one's idle giggle into tears. I say this all by way of warning, sister, Now we are launched upon this dangerous sea. Consider of it.
MRS. DUBEDAT: I had a great many dreams; but at last they all came down to this. I didn't want to waste myself. I could do nothing myself; but I had a little property and I could help with it. I had even a little beauty: don't think me vain for knowing it. I knew that men of genius always had a terrible struggle with poverty and neglect at first. My dream was to save one of them from that, and bring some charm and happiness into his life. I prayed Heaven would send me one. I firmly believe that Louis was guided to me in answer to my prayer. He was no more like the other men I had met than the Thames Embankment is like our Cornish coasts. He saw everything that I saw, and drew it for me. He understood everything. He came to me like a child. Only fancy, doctor: he never even wanted to marry me: he never thought of the things other men think of! I had to propose it myself. Then he said he had no money. When I told him I had some, he said "Oh, all right," just like a boy. He is still like that, quite unspoiled, a man in his thoughts, a great poet and artist in his dreams, and a child in his ways. I gave him myself and all I had that he might grow to his full height with plenty of sunshine. If I lost faith in him, it would mean the wreck and failure of my life. I should go back to Cornwall and die. I could show you the very cliff I should jump off. You must cure him: you must make him quite well again for me. I know that you can do it and that nobody else can. I implore you not to refuse.
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